Spudgy’s Car Accident

Today we took Spudgy to the vet to get him all fixed up. Last week the vet merely checked him over to see what we had to do for this week. And so, after the plan was set, Spudgy had a busy day set out for him today. He had hip x-rays, blood work, an eye exam (for his bad eye), his ear infection fixed, heartworm medicine, and vaccinations. We couldn’t get his teeth and gingivitis fixed today because it would have been too much to do for one day. We’re coming back next week for that. Then Spudgy should be 100%. We would have got most of this done last week, but we couldn’t. As you saw in the adoption video, Spudgy was shaking a lot because he was so scared. We took him into our home for a week and took good care of him, and made him far more comfortable around us. Today he was far less scared at the vet, though he got very scared near the end after having his eye prodded and his blood taken and his legs stretched out on an x-ray table, to name a few things that scared the poor little guy.

Anyhow, you can see just how comfortable the little guy is with us now in this video. We made a video to show how awesome the subways are here in Korea – way better than what we’re used to in Toronto. As well, we found some pretty awesome vending machines, so you’ll see those in the video as well.

The vet that we go to is a really great vet from what we heard. We’re just happy that he’s fluent in English. He understood us and we understood him, and so he explained everything that we needed to know about Spudgy to us. From the x-rays he took and the eye examination he gave his conclusion is that Spudgy was in a car accident. Spudgy’s hips were broken in a way that does not suggest abuse. And his left eye – his blind eye – was punctured, which rules out all but the cruellest animal abuse. His guess is that Spudgy was in a car accident, and the impact to the left of his hips and the left of his eye came from that accident. Spudgy’s eye is fine now – completely healed over, but scarred over as well, and so he can’t see out of it anymore. Nothing can be done for the eye now apart from giving him antibacterial eye drops twice a day.

As for the hip, if you check out the top of the page, you’ll see that where the arrow points to his broken hip a void, whereas on the other side the bone is solid. The vet said that we don’t have to worry about it; the bone there is not as important as the bone up top, which is all around solid. The rubbing femur head, though, might be a bit of an issue. It might cause him some soreness or pain, so if we see him limping or wincing we might have to give him painkillers for a while, but this would be later on when he’s older. For now, he’s trotting along happily. What we need to do is give him lots of exercise, because his hips are weak after the accident, and we need to build up some muscle around there.

The good news came when Spudgy’s bloodwork was done. If you click on the picture above you’ll see the results; bad numbers are in red, good numbers are in blue. And, as you can see, Spudgy’s got blue numbers across the board. As well, Spudgy has enough antibodies against all of the major Korean diseases for dogs, so all that Spudgy needed for vaccination was a couple of minor vaccinations (for rabies and such) and he was good to go. Even though he’s got a bad eye and bad hip he’s a healthy pup, and we’re really happy to hear that.

By the end of the visit Spudgy was pretty strung out, nervous and shaking. We took him on the subway and back home and he collapsed into an exhausted heap. We’ll update again next week once he gets his dental work done.